


The Edinburgh MA and his Rampant Highland Warrior

by Nineveh_uk



Category: The Comfortable Courtesan - Madame C- C-
Genre: Humor, M/M, Scott thou shouldst be living at this hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 07:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nineveh_uk/pseuds/Nineveh_uk
Summary: ...an expression that suggested that the serious, civilised, free-thinking Edinburgh MA had long dreamed of being forced to serve the carnal lusts of a wild Highlander.Following the discovery of Lady Bexbury's memoirs, scholars are forced to revise their interpretation of Alexander MacDonald's Highland fragment.





	1. A re-evaluation of MacDonald's Highland fragment

The 'Highland fragment' has occasioned much debate among MacDonaldites. It is the sole piece of fiction found among MacDonald's papers and prior to the discovery of Lady Bexbury's memoir and subsequent scholarship conclusively proving her the author of _The Gypsy's Curses_ and other works it was occasionally employed in argument for MacDonald's authorship of those pieces, despite the lack of any manuscript evidence. However with recognition of the very different style and the risqué subject matter, the majority of critics have interpreted it not as a sincere attempt at fiction, but as a scurrilous commentary on contemporary Scottish politics, probably not intended for publication, but for private circulation for the amusement of friends. Cox argues that it demonstrate the supine nature of the softened and Anglicised Edinburgh man, fit only for service to the superior Highland values. A contrary opinion is put forward by Grantham and Smith who read it as a satire of the fascination that the brutal fantasy of the noble Highland warrior in his heathery plaid holds over educated men who ought to know better than to submit to unexamined devotion to an ideal of nationhood that is no more than romantic whimsy, a theme dwelt on more conventionally in regard to English self-image in MacDonald's pamphlet _A Bear to Bait John Bull_.

In the light of the revelations in Lady Bexbury's memoir that MacDonald was not only secretary but also lover to Gervase Reveley, Viscount Raxdell, and that Clorinda, Marchioness of Bexbury, was herself the author of _Horrid Tales_ etc. the 'Highland fragment' takes on another identity: that of the author's own amateur erotic fantasy relating to a specific occasion: the masquerade hosted by the Contessa di Serrante during her final visit to London, which Raxdell attended in Highland dress. The political dimension should not, perhaps, be entirely disregarded, but under the circumstances it seems unlikely that even private circulation of the piece would have been intended. The piece ends abruptly; given the tenor of his other writings and the character revelations of the memoirs, Grantham's arguments that MacDonald's sensibilities neither permitted him to continue the somewhat tortuous metaphorical approach with which he had begun the erotic encounter nor to embark upon a more explicit course, remain strong notwithstanding the re-examined context.


	2. The Highland Fragment

Even in the mountains of Scotland a summer day may bring sweat to the brow of a man who, being a respectable scholar, rides in thick coat and hat up southern slopes in full sunlight and dare not loosen his collar for fear of the biting insects known as midges that plague those parts as the _moskito_ does the Italian lagoon. Alan MacDougal, Edinburgh MA, philosopher and scholar of that University, was grateful to reach the shade of a stand of birch trees that lined the road as it descended into a shady glen. Had he been a more imaginative man he might have reflected that were this an Italian scene such as he had read in novels - for clergyman though he was he did not disapprove of novels, the sole means by which he had ever travelled beyond his native shores - he might have paid less heed to  the midges and been more alert to other dangers of an isolated road that shifts from sun to shadow and back again with the trees that close about the traveller. Then he might have taken his pistol from his saddlebag and been ready to put it to its purpose in that moment when a figure stepped from behind a crag to slash at his horse's girth and send him tumbling to the dirt to be set upon by a crowd of men who hooded him before they rifled through his clothes and bags to take his pistol, his purse, his boots and his good coat, and from the sound of their voices, though he could not comprehend their words, everything that he had of value. They left his books, not being Corsican bandits famed for their learning, but only common Scotsmen, loosened the hood, kicked him in the belly, and rode off with his horse.

MacDougal lay for a little while stunned as much by the swift and sudden reversal of his fortune as much as by the blows he had sustained before he removed the hood, climbed to his feet, and sought a nearby burn to bring him to his senses with clear cool water. What calamity was this? Though the books, spared by his tormenters, should proclaim him a man of sufficient property to pay for an escort to return to Edinburgh upon his safe delivery to that city, return he must with his tail between his legs, and with the cost of his horse and purse there was little hope he could undertake the journey again for another year. He could scarce continue his journey in his present condition, for half the purpose of his travel was to take the books to his friend, and he must leave them behind on his return or see that errand unfulfilled, and how should he then return? But MacDougal was a practical man and not of a temperament over-easily persuaded to despair. The hour was not late, and though he no longer had a watch he saw from the brightness of the midsummer sky that there was yet ample time to bring him even on foot to the village to the north where he had thought to overnight in an inn. There he would pay for his lodging and with luck a pair of shoes with the coin he had had sewn in his drawers against the exigency only, his landlady had imagined, of his losing his pack in the river when walking one day, and consider his best action. Perhaps some better thought would yet come to him.

He had walked some miles and his stockinged feet were weary when he heard a clatter of travellers behind him. He turned, hefting in his hand a stock he had picked up in the spinney and prepared to fight for his life he had not managed for his property, but his pursuers did not seem to be bandits. The men who rode towards him were too open, their demeanour too proud to be those creeping scurvy fellows. Indeed, they were true highlanders, bold and brave, their chief clear-faced and gay in the midst of them.

'Man, what do ye here?' said the foremost against them, a grizzly fellow whose demeanour confirmed him some manner of captain to his chief. 'D'ye no ken there are bandits on the road? Och, I see ye ken it well!'

'I have indeed met with the bandits,' said MacDougal, 'and they have robbed me of all my baggage save these clothes you see and the books in this sack. But if you would be so good to tell me am I on the road to A- I will not trouble you.'

'Wha's this? A man robbed on my land and I not lend him aid?' The chieftain had dismounted some yards off and now strode towards MacDougal where he stood half-leaning on his stock. His hair was dark as the richest amber, untouched as yet by silver. His tall and upright figure proclaimed him an aficionado not of fashion, though his plaid became him well enough, but of the manly sports of the field and the wrestling ring. 'I am the MacG- of MacG- and you shall be my guest tonight, aye and tomorrow for it is Sunday and not a fit day to travel, and we shall send you on your way thereafter in proper style. Aye, and with your property accounted for if my men know their duty. I will brook no refusal. Can ye ride?'

_Oh! How do I butcher that fine Highland tongue! Would that I had such an ear as Clorinda._

It was plain that argument would be impossible, indeed it would surely be most unwise in the face of this proud man who even now watched through narrowed eyes as half his band turned their horses and road back whence they had come, evidently on the track of the bandits. Besides, MacDougal's feet were weary, his belly empty, and the promise of lodging and this second turn in his fortune irresistible.

'I can, sir. I am most grateful for your kindness.' He mounted the shaggy horse brought to him by one of MacG-'s men, thankful in this company to be able to acquit himself a decent rider, if no centaur, and saw the chief's approving eye on him as he settled himself in the saddle. 'I fear I have nothing but thanks to offer in return, for the bandits took my purse, and I have only a few coin and these books that are promised to my friend to whom I journey.'

'I will take none but thanks from ye,' said the chief, as they began to ride, his men coming around them in formation once again. 'It is the right of any man to cross my lands in peace from the poorest crofter to the King of Abyssinia, I will have no highwaymen here. But if ye would feel better to thank me with more than words, ye may preach us a sermon tomorrow morn, for our old priest died last year and the new is lately left, for he could not stand the midges that brought him out in welts upon the face. It is true that a sermon is but words, but it is words with meat to them.'

 'I fear to disappoint you, sir, but you mistake me. I am no minister.'

'Ye are a university man, are ye no'?'

'Of Edinburgh, sir, from whence I journey.'

'Then ye shall preach us a philosophical sermon. For by your books and your manner of speaking I see that ye are a philosopher.'

'That I am, and if you wish it I shall gladly speak to your household of philosophy.'

'Aye, I do wish it. But none of your Roman men, mark you, none of your after-comers. Let it be the Greeks, they are better men to my mind. Tell us what they have to say to Scotland.'

'It should be an honour.'

They rode on, passing the village with its bustling inn, and north to the laird's castle. The day turned to evening, and the westering sun set a golden crown in MacG's dark hair, and the points of his stirrups shone like sparks of fire. MacDougal listened as the men around him talked in their wild highland tongue, discussing no doubt the iniquities of the bandits and the folly of this southern stranger in equal measure. The lilting words rolled over him almost as a lullaby, and his eyelids began to droop as they came at least to the great stone walls with flaming sconces set beside the open gates. He stumbled from his horse and followed the housekeeper who led him to a guest chamber where a fire blazed and a bed stood waiting, and he sank into slumber.

*

The bed was soft and the fresh highland air invigorating. Despite the events of the previous day, MacDougal woke early and set with good appetite about the basin of porridge brought by a bonny highland maid. The chieftain's request for a sermon was surely a jest, but were it sincerely meant it would not do to disappoint his rescuers. He turned to his books to see what the Greeks might have to say to Scotland. It was not a subject to which he had hitherto given great thought. And yet - might there not be dialogue betwixt those two people? For all their philosophy, the Greeks were no mere men of the book, but exponents of all the manly virtues. Truly, it seemed to MacDougal that for all a Christian man's inheritance of philosophy, the Greeks had valued it lightly. The manly virtues were more to their liking: courage, honour, and the arts of war. The poem in the hall was more of them than the scholar in his cell. Were Achilles or Plato to be translated in time to this latter day either would surely have more to say to the proud MacG- than to Alan MacDougal in his black coat. Upon that subject, thought MacDougal, might a man find a sermon indeed! That to these warriors in their northern fastness was given the inheritance of the best of the Greeks, that across that span of time and place yet echoed the glories of those ancient days, would an ear but hear and leaven the claymore and the pipes with the wisdom of Socrates. Yes, there was a sermon, there was a book. Let him begin upon it this hour. Thankful it had been spared by the bandits along with his books, MacDougal took up his pen.

Porridge is a fine food for men and finer yet for beasts, but it sustains the belly only so long a time. At length the sun shone higher in the sky and MacDougal grew hungry. Had he been forgotten? Surely not by these hospitable men. It must be that they hesitated to intrude their rude ways upon a scholar. But his travel had given him a taste for the outdoor world, for the heathery hills and the scent of soft brown water, and even more than these riches of nature the castle itself, stern and strong, must be admired. When should such as Alan MacDougal, MA, son of a Stirling shopkeeper, have another opportunity to penetrate the depths of a highland fastness? He combed his hair in the pale reflection of a diamond-paned window, fastened his borrowed shoes, and descended by a winding stair to seek his host.

He was met at its foot by the maid who had brought his porridge and who sat now industriously at her needlework. But though her youth and innocence proclaimed her maid indeed, by the fineness of her clothes and the nobility of her bearing she was no servant. Daughter, no - for she must be rising twenty - sister of MacG- her face proclaimed her, and as she saw him introduced herself as such.

'It being Sunday and no priest in the house, my brother leads a prayer and then he must ride on a visit. I will call for water and a clean shirt for ye, and when ye are bathed I will show ye the gardens where ye may walk. My brother says that if ye are willing he would ask for your philosophical sermon at dinner. Ye need not fear the company will be drunken and not listen. When MacG- bids his men to attend, attend they do.'

So there it was, the sermon was to be given. Thankful for his earlier industry, MacDougal bathed and donned the shirt, made perhaps by the girl's own hands, was shaved by the castle barber and given his mid-day meat, and seeing the fair Flora anxious to be about her business, took up his books and his writing materials and set forth for the castle gardens to study about his sermon. The theme came easily to him, a mere first study, perforce, of what it might become with time, but there was matter to it. As the sun shone in the west, though hours yet from setting in these parts, with brushed coat and hair he stood before the window and steeled himself to descend to the hall. The knock on the door came before he was ready. MacG- himself stood there in all the glory of a highland chief in the prime of his manhood, his linen white, his plaid bold, and the _sgian-dubh_ glinting in the stocking of a well-formed leg.

'I thought ye might be grateful for a drop o' courage before ye bearded the lion in his den, or the highlander in his hall.' He held out a bottle and two glasses. 'My men have found and chastised those who persecuted you. I fear your clothes will not be fit for respectable wear again, but we shall supply the deficiency, and that fine horse o'yon will be home tomorrow and none the worse to ride again in a day or two.'

'I cannot thank you enough, sir, for your efforts and your hospitality. I can only ask your forbearance with my poor thanks.'

'Och, man, do not thank me now, ye shall do it later. Now have a dram and let us toast the men of old and new days.'

His linen pressed, his coat brushed, MacDougal had made his way to the hall in some trepidation, but as he leant back into his chair and smoked the pipe of which MacG- had made him a present he reflected that he need not have feared. The men, though rowdy in their drink, had been no worse behaved than Edinburgh students at a feast, and attentive enough to the 'philosophical sermon', and the feast spread on the tables had been much better than that served in the University's halls. MacG- retook his seat and pushed the whisky bottle towards him.

 'You gave a fine sermon, better than many a minister, and more in it of God than some. You show that Socrates has much to say to the Scotsman, but would you have us emulate the Greeks in all their practices? For I have heard somewhat of them that would not be approved in a sermon in a the kirk.'

'I intended no such implication nor offence,' said MacDougal stiffly.

'Och man,' said MacG- his Scots tongue becoming broader as he drank. 'Dinnae give me your sorry. I may be no Eton man, but I dinnae quail at the word of buggery. I only ask ye, as a philosopher, can a man be as the Greeks without it? Can he have their virtues, but not their vices.'

'I have scarcely put it to the test!' MacDougal looked around, but their neighbours were deep in their own drink and conversation, leaving the laird to his guest. 'I do not claim that each single one of their practices is virtuous because it was done in Athens once, any more than I approve of their veiling of their women or the exposure of infants. But seems to me that though a man might doubt the virtue of their _carnal_ practices, the principle of the tutelage of a younger man by an older one, each striving to honour the other through his own merits, has great virtue in it and that the youth of this isle might be better for it than brutalised as they are in schools.'

'A noble speech, and I am with you. Let us drink to the Greeks and their virtues.'

They drank, and as the evening wore on they drank more. Sunday it may have been, but though there was no fiddle and no dancing, beer and tobacco reigned and as the night wore on the men burst at times into song. Only once did MacG- raise a hand as a voice struck up a bawdy air only to fall silent at the Laird's gesture. Benevolent tyrant he may have been, but tyrant it was plain he was. Nor did the women withdraw, but demonstrated the equality of the sexes through an equal consumption of drink if not of tobacco, and MacDougal had the suspicion from the laughter that rose from the groups of wives gathered together that their talk would have elicited that raised hand had it been set to music. Outside the hall the long highland evening glowed purple and gold and faded at length into night, and at last MacG- rose.

'It is the fate of the master not to see the end of an evening, but it would come hard on the men to have their gaiety confined entirely by his presence. Is it no' the same at the university?'

'At the feasts it is.'

'Then let us leave them to their riot.'

He that cannot hold his whisky is no true Scotsman. Lowlander he may have been, but MacDougal yielded to no Highland man in his claim to his nation and he walked as steadily as MacG- as that man lead him through the maze of stone not to the guestchamber, but to the laird's own.

'The night is young enoo' ' he said. 'Come take another dram with me and tell me more of the Greeks, for I feel my lack of learning.'

MacDougal entered the room as he was bid. To his surprise it was no tapestried chamber, but a modern room lined with silk and furnished in the recent style and he sat where he was bid upon a broad _sopha_.

'I will not say that you have something better, for I will not so disdain learning. But you have virtues that are its equal, and if there are realms that you are yet to master, it is through the claims of other duties, not lack of wit nor will.'

'That is a pretty speech.'

'It is sincere, sir. None knows your virtues more than myself, who went barefoot on the road when you found me and might be there still without your aid. But you have horsed me and housed me and made me your guest at an evening  such as I have not enjoyed so greatly in many years. I only wish I could make you better recompense than I have. If you would bid me send you books when I am returned to Edinburgh I would do it gladly at my own expense.'

'That is a generous offer and I will not gainsay it, but that is long to wait to further my acquaintance with the Athenians. There is something it seems to me ye might do now, if ye will stand to it.'

'I will. Though I could not fight against twenty, unweaponed as I was, I will stand to any task you lay upon me, large as it is.'

'Och, not so far for a first occasion; ye need not lay, but only kneel to it. Though you may find it large enough.'

'Do I understand you, sir?'

'I hope you may, so if ye will then put aside that glass and lay a hand to a highland laddie as will stand for ye.'

Was it the whisky that made MacDougal's heart beat so as he looked at that noble figure as he stood before the hearth, his hair aglow with the flame? Was it so the Athenian youth looked upon his erastes? Alexander upon Hephaistion, Achilles upon his Patroclus. Aeschylus  had it so, but Plato differed. Xenophon called them but comrades. Who given opportunity would not be a comrade to the MacG- of MacG-? Who but a fool would not accept the offer of the comradeship of Thebes? MacDougal put aside his glass and laid his hand, with scarcely a tremble to it, to the highland raiment to reveal the muscled thighs, the powerful loins, and the bright hair from which the generative organ sprung proud.

'Then as you wish, sir, let us venture on practical philosophy.'

No Regius Professor could have expounded his argument as the MacG- of MacG- to MacDougal on his knees. No lecture hall had known such a subtle tongue, no argument so penetrated to the very root of the matter. His manner of persuasion brooked no dispute and MacDougal gave none. The mouth that had preached an unorthodox sermon was put to other purposes. The hands that wielded the claymore turned to another weapon as the strong hands and mighty thews of the warrior taught their lesson to the scholar   ~~brandishing the phallus organ engine  
~~

_To think I once thought Catullus a cheap poet, I who cannot scribble the word of prick to say plain what is done with it! Deacon Brodie, hold to your own trade, for you will never make your fortune with the novel.  
_


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